This week on CounterSpin: FCC chair Ajit Pai has announced his plans to gut net neutrality; the former Verizon lawyer and Jeff Sessions staffer declared his intentions at a private event in DC. So the victory activists fought for—having broadband recognized as a public utility like the telephone, and not some sort of corporate gift—is in jeopardy. What does this mean for all of us who rely on an open internet, and in particular for communities of color, for whom the web’s relatively even playing field is crucial for communication and organizing?

On April 25, 2017, CLTC was honored to host Tom Lowenthal, Staff Technologist for the Committee to Protect Journalists, for a lunch seminar entitled “Won’t Somebody Think of the Journalists?”. Formerly a paranoia advocate at Mozilla and the Tor Project’s coordinator, Lowenthal specializes in operational security and grassroots surveillance self-defense. In his presentation, he outlined the importance of broad security and privacy protections in today’s media landscape, in which anyone can be a journalist.

""Half the time it's, 'Oh no, Facebook didn't take something down, and we think that's terrible; they should have taken it down,' " says Daphne Keller, a law professor at Stanford University. "And the other half of the time is, 'Oh no! Facebook took something down and we wish they hadn't.' "

Matt Larson, a litigation analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, and Andrea Matwyshyn, a professor at Northeastern University, discuss a lawsuit between Apple and Qualcomm over Qualcomm’s chip pricing structure. They speak with June Grasso and Michael Best on Bloomberg Radio’s "Bloomberg Law."

When a Texas grand jury this week indicted the man accused of causing journalist Kurt Eichenwald to have a seizure, experts said it was perhaps the first time that a type of electronic communication has been classified as “a deadly weapon” in a physical assault case.

In 2013, Elon Musk proposed an "open source transportation concept" of levitating vehicles zooming passengers through vacuum tubes at 760 miles an hour. It would be weatherproof, energy-efficient, relatively inexpensive, have autonomous controls. Its impact on urban and inter-city transport could reshape economies and families.

The internet makes access to information incredibly easy, and we normally see that as a good thing. But what if the information being accessed is details of our private lives? And what if the person accessing them is a government intelligence agency? This week we speak with Jennifer Granick, author of "American Spies" and director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, about the quest for privacy in the age of surveillance.